Femtocell which is called Home NodeB (HNB) or Home eNodeB (HeNB) in 3GPP, has been a hot topic of discussion. It is not only the solution for improving coverage of mobile communication at home, but also a solution to introduce more value-added services, e.g., location-based services, local IP access to residential and enterprise networks.
FIG. 1 depicts a network topology architecture comprising a Femtocell 11, including a residential network 10, a fixed access network 20, and a mobile core network 30. The fixed access network 20 provides a network link for the Femtocell 11 to connect to the mobile core network, which means the fixed access network 20 provides the backhaul for the Femtocell 11 to connect to the mobile core network 30; a User Equipment (UE) 41 connects to the mobile network via Femtocell 11. The Femtocell 11 sets up a secure channel with a Femto Gateway in the mobile core network 30. If the Femtocell 11 does not support LIPA (local IP Access), communications between the UE 41 and apparatus in the fixed access network 20, apparatus in the residential network, and apparatus in the internet(not shown in FIG. 1) have to go through the secure channel to be mobile core network and then be routed to where they should go by the GPRS gateway supported node. If the Femtocell 11 supports LIPA, the UE 41 can communicate with apparatus in residential network directly, while communications with the fixed access network 20 and the internet still have to go through the secure channel and across the mobile core network. Besides, 3GPP is researching how the internet services can be delivered bypassing the Femtocell and go into internet directly via the fixed access network 20, instead of going through the secure channel to the mobile core network.